Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London, England. She married poet Percy
Bysshe Shelley in 1816. Two years later, she published her most famous novel, Frankenstein.
She wrote several other books, including Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), the
autobiographical Lodore (1835) and the posthumously published Mathilde. Shelley died of
brain cancer on February 1, 1851, in London, England.
 Mary Shelley’s Literary Biography

William Godwin
Mary Wollstonecraft

Percy Shelley Lord Byron

Frankenstein’s Main Themes

Social Status
 Illustrative quotations

“So much has been done,

“What may not be exclaimed the soul of
expected in a Frankenstein—more, far
country of eternal more, will I achieve; treading
light?”. in the steps already marked,
I will pioneer a new way,
explore unknown powers,
and unfold to the world the
deepest mysteries of
creation”.
Illustrative quotation
“ I saw—with shut eyes, but
acute mental vision—I saw the
pale student of unhallowed arts
kneeling beside the thing he had
put together. I saw the hideous
phantasm of a man stretched
out, and then, on the working of
some powerful engine, show
signs of life and stir with an
uneasy, half-vital motion.
Frightful must it be, for
supremely frightful would be the
effect of any human endeavor to
mock the stupendous
mechanism of the Creator of the
world”.